Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

²“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

³But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

⁴so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

⁶But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.

⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

¹⁰Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹Give us this day our daily bread.

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

¹³And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

¹⁴For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;

¹⁵but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

¹⁶“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

¹⁸so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;

²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.

²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light;

²³but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

²⁴“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

²⁷And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,

²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?

³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’

³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

³⁴“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

¹When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them,

²the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

³Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.”

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

⁵The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

⁶And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

⁷So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created — people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

⁸But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.

⁹These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

¹⁰And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

¹²And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.

¹³And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

¹⁴Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.

¹⁵This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.

¹⁶Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.

¹⁷For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.

¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

¹⁹And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

²⁰Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive.

²¹Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.”

²²Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

¹What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?

²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin.

⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.

¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,

¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.

²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

⁴Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

⁵This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering.

⁶For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,

⁷and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels

⁸in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁹These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

¹⁰when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

¹¹To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith,

¹²so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹Then Job answered:

²“O that my vexation were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!

³For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea; therefore my words have been rash.

⁴For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.

⁵Does the wild ass bray over its grass, or the ox low over its fodder?

⁶Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any flavor in the juice of mallows?

⁷My appetite refuses to touch them; they are like food that is loathsome to me.

⁸“O that I might have my request, and that God would grant my desire;

⁹that it would please God to crush me, that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!

¹⁰This would be my consolation; I would even exult in unrelenting pain; for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

¹¹What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should be patient?

¹²Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?

¹³In truth I have no help in me, and any resource is driven from me.

¹⁴“Those who withhold kindness from a friend forsake the fear of the Almighty.

¹⁵My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed, like freshets that pass away,

¹⁶that run dark with ice, turbid with melting snow.

¹⁷In time of heat they disappear; when it is hot, they vanish from their place.

¹⁸The caravans turn aside from their course; they go up into the waste, and perish.

¹⁹The caravans of Tema look, the travelers of Sheba hope.

²⁰They are disappointed because they were confident; they come there and are confounded.

²¹Such you have now become to me; you see my calamity, and are afraid.

²²Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’? Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’?

²³Or, ‘Save me from an opponent’s hand’? Or, ‘Ransom me from the hand of oppressors’?

²⁴“Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone wrong.

²⁵How forceful are honest words! But your reproof, what does it reprove?

²⁶Do you think that you can reprove words, as if the speech of the desperate were wind?

²⁷You would even cast lots over the orphan, and bargain over your friend.

²⁸“But now, be pleased to look at me; for I will not lie to your face.

²⁹Turn, I pray, let no wrong be done. Turn now, my vindication is at stake.

³⁰Is there any wrong on my tongue? Cannot my taste discern calamity?

¹O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.

²Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.

³My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O LORD — how long?

⁴Turn, O LORD, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.

⁵For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?

⁶I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.

⁷My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.

⁸Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

⁹The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD accepts my prayer.

¹⁰All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.

¹My child, if you have given your pledge to your neighbor, if you have bound yourself to another,

²you are snared by the utterance of your lips, caught by the words of your mouth.

³So do this, my child, and save yourself, for you have come into your neighbor’s power: go, hurry, and plead with your neighbor.

⁴Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;

⁵save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.

⁶Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.

⁷Without having any chief or officer or ruler,

⁸it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest.

⁹How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.

¹²A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech,

¹³winking the eyes, shuffling the feet, pointing the fingers,

¹⁴with perverted mind devising evil, continually sowing discord;

¹⁵on such a one calamity will descend suddenly; in a moment, damage beyond repair.

¹⁶There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him:

¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil,

¹⁹a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

²⁰My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

²¹Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck.

²²When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.

²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

²⁴to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

²⁶for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.

²⁷Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one’s clothes?

²⁸Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet?

²⁹So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.

³⁰Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry.

³¹Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold; they will forfeit all the goods of their house.

³²But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself.

³³He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

³⁴For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge.

³⁵He will accept no compensation, and refuses a bribe no matter how great.

¹Now Jericho was shut up inside and out because of the Israelites; no one came out and no one went in.

²The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers.

³You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days,

⁴with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets.

⁵When they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and all the people shall charge straight ahead.”

⁶So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and have seven priests carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark of the LORD.”

⁷To the people he said, “Go forward and march around the city; have the armed men pass on before the ark of the LORD.”

⁸As Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the LORD went forward, blowing the trumpets, with the ark of the covenant of the LORD following them.

⁹And the armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets; the rear guard came after the ark, while the trumpets blew continually.

¹⁰To the people Joshua gave this command: “You shall not shout or let your voice be heard, nor shall you utter a word, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.”

¹¹So the ark of the LORD went around the city, circling it once; and they came into the camp, and spent the night in the camp.

¹²Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.

¹³The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD passed on, blowing the trumpets continually. The armed men went before them, and the rear guard came after the ark of the LORD, while the trumpets blew continually.

¹⁴On the second day they marched around the city once and then returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵On the seventh day they rose early, at dawn, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times.

¹⁶And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city.

¹⁷The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live because she hid the messengers we sent.

¹⁸As for you, keep away from the things devoted to destruction, so as not to covet and take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel an object for destruction, bringing trouble upon it.

¹⁹But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.”

²⁰So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it.

²¹Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.

²²Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house, and bring the woman out of it and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.”

²³So the young men who had been spies went in and brought Rahab out, along with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all who belonged to her — they brought all her kindred out — and set them outside the camp of Israel.

²⁴They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.

²⁵But Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

²⁶Joshua then pronounced this oath, saying, “Cursed before the LORD be anyone who tries to build this city — this Jericho! At the cost of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest he shall set up its gates!”

²⁷So the LORD was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land.

¹In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

²Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

³And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

⁵And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

⁶Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

⁷The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

⁹And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’

¹⁰Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”

¹¹Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate;

¹²until the LORD sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

¹³Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.

¹Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.

²And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.

³Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task,

⁴while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.”

⁵What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

⁶They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

⁷The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

⁸Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

⁹Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen.

¹⁰But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.

¹¹Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

¹²They stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council.

¹³They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law;

¹⁴for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.”

¹⁵And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.